Glory

It was pure serendipity that we visited "First Friday" in Oxford on June 6. We were going to see local troubadour Charlie Zahm perform at Oxford Friends Meeting, and we arrived in town early to get something to eat. What a surprise: downtown Oxford was packed! There was live music; the shops, galleries and second-hand stores were open; and nonprofits and churches were publicizing their activities. There was even a troupe of belly dancers performing.
We walked up and down the main street, ate some ice cream, and then settled in at the meeting house for Charlie Zahm's concert of Revolutionary War and Civil War songs, including "Yankee Doodle," "Chester," "Goober Peas," "Shenandoah," and "Battle Hymn of the Republic." It was poignant that we were listening to these songs of war and loss and love of country on the 70th anniversary of D-Day.
Charlie performed along with fiddler Tad Marks, and the good-natured banter between the two of them was amusing. They recently returned from a trip to Qatar, where they performed for American military personnel.

Home & Garden Day

I don't think I can remember a Home & Garden Day with nicer weather than this year's event. It wasn't pouring; it wasn't sweltering. Instead it was sunny and warm, and we had a great time, hitting five of the eight spots along the Kennett Pike corridor.
What a variety of houses! We toured photographer Jim Graham's charming home/gallery (impeccably tidy), an imposing country manor house (loved the white roses climbing up the stonework), a splendid garden designed by Danilo Maffei, and an Arts and Crafts-style house with a salt-water swimming pool. I think my favorite stop was the final house we visited, where vivid modern artwork shared wall space with nineteenth-century family portraits and photographs of the homeowner's political colleagues.
The food is always a bonus on this tour, and this year, whether by coincidence or design, the theme was mushrooms. We had mushroom crepes (from Portabello's), mushroom dip (the Kennett Square Inn), and mushroom ravioli (La Verona); we also enjoyed chocolate chip biscotti from Sinclair's Sunrise Café and very welcome iced coffee from Starbucks. The coffee station was manned by my dear friend, Ed Fahey, and his wife, Sue, who landed a plum assignment next to a quiet little pond.
The directions and signs were excellent, the parkers were friendly and efficient and the tour guides did a great job making sure we saw all the highlights.
At the final house the parker told us that our Jeep was just the right size to fit into the stone center island of the cul-de-sac. So at his request we parked there, and as we left he told us that people were much amused at the sight.
I doff my straw hat to the library's super-organized Special Events Committee, who set the standard for these house tours. As always, the event is a fundraiser for children's programs at the Bayard Taylor Library in Kennett.

Tales of Newark Road

Thank you to a public-spirited citizen who moved a recently struck deer carcass off heavily traveled Newark Road earlier this week. I'm told he carried it in the bucket of his front-end loader to a remote part of his property, where the turkey buzzards could dispose of it.
Speaking of Newark Road: Another resident is begging motorists to slow down. The speed limit is 40 m.p.h., but she said she sees people flying by her house regularly and even passing other cars. "Somebody's going to get killed," she warned darkly, as we stood in her front yard watching traffic during evening "rush hour."

Bike ride

"Unionville in the News" reader Bill Clement wrote to tell me that this year's "Chester County Challenge for Cancer" (www.cccride.com) will be on Sunday, June 22, so just a heads up that there will be an especially large number of bicyclists on the roads that day. The main rest stop will be at Kinloch Woodworking on Route 82 in the middle of Unionville, with another on White Horse Road toward Cochranville. The ride is a fundraiser for the Chester County Hospital Cancer Center and Neighborhood Hospice. There are five rides scheduled: five miles, 10 miles, 30 miles, 50 miles and 65 miles, the latter described as "most challenging, hilly."

West Marlborough police news

Police matters took up most of the June 3 meeting of the West Marlborough Township supervisors.
First, Trooper Rich D'Ambrosio, from the state police barracks at Avondale, made one of his periodic reports about state police activity in West Marlborough. Since March, he said, there were a total of 45 incidents in the township, including two criminal cases (one harassment, one theft) and 11 car crashes, three of them involving injury or significant damage.
He advised residents to lock their car doors and to call the police if they see something suspicious. He said West Marlborough always has the lowest crime statistics in the entire district: "You have a very safe community," he said.
In response to a question from one of the supervisors, he said the state police did not play a major role in the Chester County Detectives' recent break-up of a large local cocaine-selling gang "other than us going out and grabbing bodies."
In addition to coverage by the state police, West Marlborough also hires Lieut. Robert Clarke to work 40 hours per month. He reported that for May, he issued 13 citations (10 for speeding and three for parking) and five warnings.
Lieut. Clarke also reported the results of a traffic study he conducted along Runnymede Road near Springdell from May 17 to 27. He found that 37 percent of the 427 motorists (215 eastbound and 212 westbound) were exceeding the 25-m.p.h. limit: 92 were going 26 to 30 m.p.h., 43 were going 31 to 35 m.p.h., nine were going 36 to 40 m.p.h., nine were going 41 to 45 m.p.h., two were going 46 to 50 m.p.h., and three were going 51 to 55 m.p.h. No one was going above 55 m.p.h.
In other business, building inspector Eddie Caudill reported that he issued three building permits to township residents in May, two for HVAC installation and one for a new deck.

A new life for the Brown Derby

Olen Grimes, the owner of the Artworks gallery in Kennett Square, has bought The Brown Derby restaurant in downtown Toughkenamon. He and his two business partners, Ray Maxwell (who will double as chef) and Steve Burkes, will be renovating the place, a local institution, and hope to reopen soon as the Fire Hill Pub. Maxwell was formerly the chef at the Foxfire Restaurant at the Stone Barn here in West Marlborough.

Blow Horn update

I'm delighted to report that the historic Blow Horn mill at Routes 82 and 841 is going to be preserved and renovated.
General contractor Chuck Ginty of Unionville, who has the fascinating assignment, was kind enough to show me around the eighteenth-century fieldstone mill one morning last week, with the generous permission of owner D.D. Matz.
The iconic "Blow Horn" stone is going to remain where it is, forming the edge of a courtyard. But the rest of the wall nearest Route 82--the one that was mangled when a wide tractor-trailer hit it last October--is going to be taken down, stone by stone, and moved about eight feet back from the road, for safety's sake.
Chuck said Mrs. Matz asked him to assess the mill shortly before the accident, and he predicted that given its level of deterioration, "it would be two to five years before something tragic happens. ... when the truck hit, it goosed us all into action." Parts of the mill are in obviously bad shape, with gaping cracks, a collapsed wooden floor and damaged beams. We could hear and see baby birds in a nest in one of the walls, and there was fresh fox scat on an upstairs floor.
The mill is going to be completely repointed and new windows will be installed. Its future use hasn't been determined.
In the dirt-floor basement there are several beautifully built arches where water flowed in and out, providing the power source for the mill, as well as chutes where farmers could drop off their grain from the outside of the building. The millstone is missing. The muddy basement floor is going to be cleaned up, drained and covered with concrete.

The massive beams, Chuck said, are made of hemlock (Pennsylvania's state tree). By studying the saw marks, he can tell the date of some of them and even how big the saw blade was (huge).
Belts and gears conveyed the power from the basement through the three levels (there used to be another story on top as well), with wooden chutes directing the finished product into big storage bins. The gears still turn, thanks to the animal fat that was used as lubricant.

Chuck found a pile of the substantial canvas belts with metal scoops that were used to carry the grain automatically from floor to floor.

On the top floor, which is bright and airy, there's an old scale, and a windlass with thick rope that dangles down through a trap door.
Some of the craftsmanship is beautiful, with unexpected decorative touches on the staircase banister and the curved plaster window reveals. In the mill office on the main floor, scrawled sums are still visible on the white plaster wall.

The date stone on the west wall bears two dates: 1744, when William Harlan owned the mill, and 1789, when Caleb Phipps bought and enlarged it. Several owners and uses later (grain, lumber, cider), it was destroyed by fire in 1884 but was rebuilt a year later by owner William Hannum. It was purchased by Buck & Doe Run Valley Farms in 1946.

I'm pleased that the mill is being preserved -- thanks, Mrs. Matz -- because it holds a special place in the hearts of a lot of us Unionville residents. Blowing your horn at the corner is a quirky tradition that mystifies outsiders, but it's a much-loved part of our history.

Birds at the ball park

There was some avian drama at the URA baseball fields the other night. The Young Relative's team was playing in the field closest to the road, so we spectators were standing next to the little but dense area of wetlands. A red-winged blackbird was perched on a tall reed in the swamp, protecting her nest. She'd fly directly at the head of any spectator she saw as a threat, which proved to be an effective means of keeping people away. She even got tangled up in one Mom's hair.
Later in the game a Canada goose flew slowly and low, right over the infield. Fortunately the boy at bat smacked a line drive rather than a popup. I'm not sure how hitting a goose would be scored according to the URA rules.

A new lifestyle

Tilda's father recently retired, and it seems that he has put his 60-some years in the labor force behind him with remarkable ease. My brother stopped by our parents' house on Friday and my father asked, "So what did you do today?"
"I went to work," my brother said. "It's Friday."
"Oh! That's right," said Dad, with a certain degree of satisfaction.

Meet you at the Station

Should you feel the urge for an ice-cream cone in downtown West Grove, you might want to try "The Station Ice Cream Shoppe." It's a tiny place on the north side of the railroad tracks (hence the name), near the West Grove Post Office, Twelves restaurant and the Light Within yoga studio; the library and police station are just across the tracks.
After a few hours of doing yard work on this past sunny Sunday afternoon, I stopped in and ordered a dish of coffee almond fudge ice cream (what's not to like!) that was delicious and exactly the right temperature -- some places serve their ice cream so solid that it's hard to scoop it into your spoon and it gives you brain freeze. The place seemed to be doing a steady business. There are chairs and tables where you can sit outside, and the stereo was playing doo-wop music.

Gossip central

On Saturday the Cranky Friend (multiflora rose pollen is his latest affliction) asked me whether a mutual Unionville acquaintance is still dating so-and-so.
"I don't know," I replied with some asperity. "It's really none of my business."
There was a stunned silence.
"Just . . .  just let me groove on that a minute," he said haltingly. " `It's . . . none . . . of . . . my . . . business.' Coming from YOU! I . . . I just don't know what to say."

A wonderful thing to do

Last week I wrote about the Kennett Square Memorial Day parade and told you how a friend's Dad, a WWII Navy veteran, had the time of his life riding in it and waving at the crowds. The family went out to lunch afterward ... and here's what happened:
"Some kind person at Applebee's bought many $20 gift cards and told our server to make sure every service person eating at the restaurant got one, especially our table with the WW2 vet. That was an awesome gesture from an anonymous person."

Josiah Harlan

I've written before about Josiah Harlan, the nineteenth-century Newlin resident and world traveler whose daring adventures in India and Afghanistan were the inspiration for Rudyard Kipling's short story "The Man Who Would Be King."
John Snider is giving a talk about him at the Marshalton Inn on Strasburg Road on Tuesday, June 17, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. "What this man did and how he managed to stay alive doing it will be the subject of our PowerPoint presentation," reads the flier. The lecture, part of the Chester County Historical Society's "History on Tap" series, was originally scheduled for January 21 but -- no surprises here -- got snowed out.
I have it on good authority that Mr. Snider is a great storyteller.

 

Sweet talk

On top of the bakery counter at the grocery store there are usually free samples: a clamshell pack of oatmeal-raisin cookies, say, or sliced-up pieces of cake. But on Saturday I was surprised to see two plates of full-size cupcakes.
"These can't possibly be samples!" I said to my shopping companion.
The woman behind the counter overheard me and assured us they were indeed giveaways. My pal immediately selected a vanilla cupcake with a pouf of vanilla icing and sprinkles. Even though they looked really tasty, I declined.
"Oh, come on," said the baker. "It's a big store. You'll walk off the calories for sure."
Right. If only it were that easy!

Meeting house architecture

Leona Provinski reminded me that on Saturday, June 14, London Grove Friends Meeting is hosting a talk by Seth Hinshaw on the architecture of Quaker meeting houses from 1670 to 2000. The talk starts at 7:30 p.m., with refreshments to follow. Mr. Hinshaw is senior preservation planner at Wise Preservation Planning in Chester Springs. The lecture is part of London Grove's 300th anniversary celebration.

"Braaains..."

Could those stick-figure families and other decorations on your vehicle be compromising your privacy? The concern is that they're revealing information that "bad guys" could exploit. A stick-figure small dog could mean that burglars wouldn't need to worry about encountering, say, a Doberman. A father stick-figure in a military uniform could mean he might be away from home. "Honor student" bumper stickers provide information about where your kid goes to school.
I kind of liked the rotting zombie stick-figure family I spotted on a vehicle at the URA baseball fields the other day. Surely that would put off a potential burglar! Even the undead cat looks pretty fierce.